D&D 2E 2E Darksun Observations

How does a 10th level human Psionicist compare to a 10th level human Preserver/Defiler and a 10th level human Cleric, of any element, and a 10th level human Druid?

Is he worse at everything? Offense, Defense or in other things? What is he better at? Other than disintegrating himself or ultrablasting himself to a possible death? Or making himself blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed, crippled, destroying his own equipment, or from mildly and hilariously inconvenienced to mutilated or indirectly putting himself in deadly danger?

He is definitely funnier to play. He is the only one that can get himself killed or in serious trouble just by exerting his powers, which seem inferior to those of other spellcasters.

SableWyvern said:

Mentalism would be the RM Realm most similar to psionics. Essence would map to what D&D calls arcane these days.

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You are correct, It has been a couple decades and I got the category names mixed up in my head, Spell Law of Mentalism would be the appropriate sourcebook if you are looking for RM psionics type stuff to possibly use as a replacement for standard 2e psionics.

Channeling would be the Rolemaster divine magic equivalent source category.

AnderNGmx said:

How does a 10th level human Psionicist compare to a 10th level human Preserver/Defiler and a 10th level human Cleric, of any element, and a 10th level human Druid?

Is here worse at everything? Offense, Defense or in other things? What is he better at? Other than disintegrating himself or ultrablasting himself to a possible death? Or making himself blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed, crippled, destroying his own equipment, or from mildly and hilariously inconvenienced to mutilated or indirectly putting himself in deadly danger?

He is definitely funnier to play. He is the only one that can get himself killed or in serious trouble just by exerting his powers, which seem inferior to those of other spellcasters.

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I ran a ravenloft campaign which had a 2e psionicist for mid levels something like 4th-7th or so. It seemed fine compared to other PCs, a moderately weak caster with a bunch of interesting oddball powers and a bunch of telepathy angles to work on as a hook. It has been over two decades though so the details are a bit fuzzy now.

Compared to a standard 2e cleric not as a strong at combat (no tanking armor and lower HD), nowhere near as strong in healing magic. They had some neat single target offensive things and a number of noncombat options. Maybe equivalent to a druid in 2e terms.

If 2e magic was a pie then 1/3rd are priest slices 1/3rd are mage slices and 1/3rd are bard, paladin, ranger & multi-class combination slices. Or some distribution similar to it. There are no psionic slices, so when the requirement was made they were out of the pan, another smaller pan was added and it was small and badly cooked.

But this is about 2e magic in Athas Dark Sun. It should be 1/3rd priest slices 1/3rd mage slices and 1/3rd psionicist, ranger & multi-class combination slices. Since it has no bards with spells, nor paladins in general.

The system and concepts and lore were created with the mage and priest as foundations and the psionic came later, even if it was in 1976 Eldritch Wizardry, and looks like a lesser magic-user of sorts.

If some sense was to be made one would have to rethink things and in effect rewrite the 2e PHB with psionicist in mind as a core class. He could be like a priest with spells up to level 7, the bard, so a hybrid class with spells up to level 6 or the mage with spells up to 9. If the bard style was to be followed then the would have various mental abilities along with his spells/powers.

I would go with the priest model and make him tougher and better in combat with the psionic stuff coming as the result of his discipline, meditation and engaging in physical actions and kept the "glass cannon" role for the mages.

But whatever mode was followed then everything would have to change from the bottom up. The spells of priests, mages and bards already have taken up all available "spaces & roles" thus the entire system would have to be rewritten. Else we would end up just taking some priest, mage, bard spells and making them into psionicist powers and just making another mix.

Priests and mages had so many spells in 2e that 4xMage and 3xPriest Spell Compendiums, yes 7 books, existed but there was no Psionic Power Compendium. Most if not all psionic powers are in The Complete Psionics Handbook, The Will and the Way (2431), and Dragon Kings (2408). There are probably some others here and there but very few.

For a psionic world setting, as this Priest Spell Compendium tells us, it certainly does lack a Psionic Power Compendium.

I wouldn't complain if there were a community-based effort (and I'd help) to create enough powers to fill a compendium of psychic powers.

Let us say we made Psionic Power Compendium and it had 100 to 120 new powers. How would they not be variants of mage and priest spells and how would they maintain their unique psionic nature?

The 2e Complete Psionics Handbook (even with all its flaws), The Will and the Way (2431), and Dragon Kings (2408) do give a sense of how psionic powers ought to be to have them be unique and not just superficially altered mage and priest spells. Hilarious side effects aside.

AnderNGmx said:

Priests and mages had so many spells in 2e that 4xMage and 3xPriest Spell Compendiums, yes 7 books, existed but there was no Psionic Power Compendium. Most if not all psionic powers are in The Complete Psionics Handbook, The Will and the Way (2431), and Dragon Kings (2408). There are probably some others here and there but very few.

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I mentioned, back in my overview of The Complete Psionics Handbook, that those three books formed their own unofficial trilogy of psionic power supplements, but had no single collected series the way wizard and priest spells did. The closest we ever got was the Deck of Psionic Powers, the only official product which combined the psionic abilities from all three books.

i had forgotten about that, thanks man.